Redemption: The Recall
by CitrusCyrus
Summary: Sequel to "Remembrance". With the recall having been initiated, esteemed scientist and self-appointed leader of Overwatch's resurgence, Winston, must rely on friends old and new to combat the sinister global conspiracy behind Talon and the Second Omnic Crisis...and in this brave new world nothing is what it seems, and everyone- even his trusted A.I. Athena- has their own agenda.
1. A New Age

**Gibraltar Watch Point.  
Spanish-U.K. Territory.  
Present.**

"Winston?" The voice interrupted the simian's thoughts. The names and faces were scrolling by him so fast that he himself got lost in the eyes of all the men and women the computer system was presenting to him. Eyes that had seen the worst, and the best, that the world had to offer.  
"Yes, Athena, Sorry." Winston gently removed his glasses and brought his two large fingers to rub under his sore, watering eyes. His body still ached, and his muscles were still delicate from the Talon operative he that ambushed him just hours before. The scorch marks from The Reaper's canon's still pulsating at his muscular arms and across his chest.  
"Winston…you are happy. But your body language tells me otherwise. Is this fear?" The calming voice questioned, trying to get a better read on her only company in the deserted base that once held many more.  
"I'm not afraid, Athena…or I don't think I am…" Winston reclined in his chair and his feet reached for a jar of peanut butter, feeling that it was empty he tossed it over his head and listened as it landed with a small plastic thud into the trash bin which had become a cemetery of similar containers.  
"I'm just…I hope they all come. All of them. I want to change this world for the better, and I know we can do it. I just know we can."  
The artificial voice gave a soft _mhm_ of acknowledgement. That was new.  
 _She's learning, all right. Faster than I give her credit for,_ the gorilla thought to himself with satisfaction.  
"You seem elated when you see the face of Lena Oxton. The _Tracer_. I think you have feelings for her."  
 _Yeah, she's learning. Maybe too fast._ Winston's features clumped together in embarrassment.  
"I do not! She's…she was my friend. One of my best friends," Winston light heartedly deflected.  
"And Angela Zeigler. _Mercy_. I could sense something in her voice, Winston. She sounded both happy and sad. What do you call that?" Athena questioned. The light blue and white hue of the screens around him was the only source of light in the dark oceanic night-sky which had consumed the island.  
"I don't know what I'd call that. Maybe she's…looking for redemption."  
"Redemption." Athena repeated back slowly.  
"The action of saving, or being saved from sin, error, or evil. Noun." Athena clarified.  
"Yes," Winston acknowledged, "I think maybe we all are. We're getting another chance to save this world."  
"An illegal chance, Winston. The Petras Act-"  
"-I know, Athena. But sometimes to do some good, you have to be a little…bad, first." Winston adjusted his glasses, and caught himself wearing a cocky smile in his reflection.

It was getting late into the night, late enough that it would be early morning soon, and Winston scaled the rocky formation the base had been quietly built into. Finding a spot at the top thanks to a weak boost from his backpack's thrusters, he let the cool breeze from the ocean kiss at his hair.  
He'd successfully recalled several of his former allies, and was surprised that they'd all made it this long. More than twenty years into the future, and he'd almost not recognized a few of them.  
Reinhardt Wilhelm's location had shown him in Nuuk, Greenland and his booming voice was almost so overjoyed Winston thought he'd need to replace the speaker system on his set-up. The triumphant night's flowing thick mane of hair now encompassed his strong jaw, just as white.  
Jesse McCree was in the United States, somewhere. The cowboy was happily chomping on a cigar on some dusty Texas road, and tilted the brim of his hat to acknowledge the request.

Lena was in England, attending a Shambali gathering where their leader, _Tekhartha Mondatta,_ would be addressing a crowd in an attempt to sway the Human/Omnic relationship.  
Mei-Ling…was still lost. Lord only knew where. _That would be Winston's first joint task_.  
Genji Shimada told the monkey he had business to deal with at home, but he would soon find his way to him.  
But there were more heroes. More he needed. He couldn't just take on the world…take on Talon…with a handful. Winston then drifted his eyes skyward, at the dark of the moon above.  
The Horizon Lunar Colony was still illuminated as bright as ever, like a hairline crack upon the surface of the Moon. It mocked him, and it made him feel at peace all at once.  
"I'm doing this for you, Winston." He whispered the keeper of his namesake into the air, and touched the man's glasses that he wore in his memory.  
"I'm doing this for all of us."

* * *

 **King's Row.  
London.**

The crow was hundreds deep and the London air was chilled just how Lena Oxton enjoyed it.  
Although she had never had a love yet- a true love- that didn't involve aviation, her heart was filled to the brim at the sight around her infront of the Meridian Theatre. The cobblestone street was populated by humans and Omnic alike. Friends, lovers, all gathered to welcome words of peace as the world seemed to grow more and more frightening.  
In her yellow jumpsuit, sprinter's shoes, and jacket, Lena was a sight.  
 _Tha's the point, love._ She'd told the Shambali when she'd volunteered for security detail.  
 _By tha' time they see me commin' it's usually too late.  
_ And she'd anticipated an attack ever since Mondatta said he was coming to visit. Eyes to the rooftops, eyes on the ground, Lena was prepared for anything.  
Then something told her to look up. An instinct? Women's intuition? Lena's gaze along the gorgeous architecture silhouetting the London night sky shifted to a figure that looked like it belonged to a slender phantom.  
An omen from the darkness itself. It was perched hanging upside down, like a spider, with 7 beady red eyes glowing softly in the pitch of the night. It's form then began to lower, dipping seductively between the buildings. The arachnid shadow slipping from sight.  
Lena smirked, and broke from the crowd to confront it.


	2. The Spider's Trap

There was nothing to compare to the feeling, the way every single inch of her skin would erupt into chills in a chaotic burst of warmth and cold as she slipped through the sky- her ear drums pounding at the shock of the air and time around her. Lena, as a child, had always dreamed of flying.  
Dreamed of following in the footsteps of her father- an ace pilot in the British RAF- and of making the Oxton name one that history wouldn't soon forget. As she zipped towards the figure, the Chronal Accelrator bearing down on her chest gave a weak pulse- she only had two leaps left before she'd need to recharge…but she was right where she needed to be.  
Lena summersaulted out of her streak, ejecting the magnetic pistols from her arm's holsters and began firing. The figure wasn't having that. The slender shadow kicked herself up and back against the side of the building she was dangling at and began to fire wildly. Lena carefully zipped through the air once more and, in a diagonal path, used the carried momentum to slam the attacker through the window behind her, sending them both toppling into a narrow hallway.  
In the dim light, she caught her first good look. The shapely body was blue in color, like a corpse, and barely concealed in a tight fighting concord colored bodysuit.

Grape colored hair flowed from the woman's scalp in an elaborate and thin ponytail that stretched to the back of her thighs.  
"Here to crash the party, love?" Tracer popped off and she gripped her pistols, waiting for the character to move.  
The woman's lips tugged into a smug expression and her serpentine colored eyes seemed to smile at her like she was a meal. The would-be sniper readied her weapon and began to fire just fast enough for her to vault back out into the sky, and with a _ping_ her grappling hook took her up into the night.  
Lena was on her heels, enjoying the chase too much to let go. With two quick bursts she landed on the rooftop  
 _She's a quick one!_ Lena thought. Her eyes could barely keep track of the woman as she sprinted and leapt across the London skyline. Her figure twisting and twirling over brick exit huts and smoking pipes like paper flittering through a gust of wind…but she wasn't fast enough to escape Lena.  
" _Tracer_ to Security! We have a breach up here, get Mondattato safety, now!" She yelled into her ear piece as every blip and leap showed more and more bodies of the rooftop security the girl had apparently dispatched.  
 _She's a monster, too._  
One blink, then another, and soon Lena was midair clearing a wide gap that the assailant had just vaulted with ease. No powers required. The figure slipped behind an orgy of brick and pipe, and soon Lena landed and began to vault until-  
Something snapped. Even at the supersonic speed, breaking through time itself, she could hear the mechanism go off, and then her lungs burned. Her vision was fading, and Lena Oxton slipped into a painful tumble across the wet cement of the roof.

It was in her goggles, she couldn't choke it out. She held her throat and began to heave as if a thousand needles were making their way up her esophagus.  
Through the violet visions covering her eyes, the woman approached. Her walk was refined yet sexual at the same time, like there was modesty in her lustful swagger.  
"Poor little girl," She spoke. A thick French accent caressed her words like smooth silk, "I think you've fallen into my trap."  
Lena gagged when words could not be reached, and then she felt her accelerator whirr and click to life. Taking a deep, painful breath, she was thrust backwards through subspace itself and her health began to return as her veins screamed to life and her muscles roared under her skin from the pressure applied by the reversal.  
Lena was now clearing the gap once again, and slammed down on the roof to blink rapidly towards the woman, dazed by the strategy.  
"Poor lady!" Oxton laughed, blinking from the woman's front to her rear within an instant as she delivering two strikes to her jaw then her lower back in less than a second.  
"Looks like ya' not the only one with some tricks and traps!" She withdrew her dual pistols and pressed them at the fine arch of the figure.  
A beat of silence, then a chuckle.  
Lena was about to speak, then realized her error. Her feet were planted in the middle of a nearly invisible circle of the assassin's fine wire.  
 _She calculated my moves! Already!_ Lena's accelerator weakly flashed red. She was still recharging.  
The trap sprung and brought the zippy agent slamming down to her face and then backwards, and dangling upside down over a metal grating.  
The woman was off again, and in a clear view of the wide city-square below as the security guards attempted to push Mondatta through a thick sea of humans and Omnics, screaming for peace. Screaming to be comforted by the sage's words.  
 _No. No. No._ Lena though, as she waited. The few seconds were an eternity for what her adversary was capable of. She saw the shadowed figure hunch over, to line up her shot.  
Lena screamed and began to fire her pistols to no avail, and then finally at the height of her anger…  
The machine at her breast kicked to life. She was ready.  
One blink sent her just over the head of the sharp-shooter and into a free-fall above the maddening crowd below. Suspended in the air, she was ready for the next blink to take her right into-  
 _CRACK!_ The rifle fired _._ She blinked.  
"Hah!" She yelled, crashing into the sniper and sending her gun slipping and spiraling across the rooftop behind them as she was now on top of the woman.  
"I'm 'fraid ya missed. And I'll be…" Tracer then heard the screams below. The cries.  
The collective loss of hope was more frighteningly palpable than anything she'd felt before.  
"No, no," Lena took herself away from the sniper and gazed at the chaos below. The chaos surrounding the pristine white figure of the Omnic known as Mondatta.  
The corpse of Mondatta.  
Behind her was a quiet laughter. Lena turned around and blinked ontop of the woman once again, the joy in her eyes was horrific.  
"Why?!" Lena questioned through tears of anger, "Why did you do it?!"  
The woman just smiled. Her white teeth and piercing golden eyes were like the mask of a demon.  
Then the sky lit up. Like the heavens themselves were coming into view.  
The killer violently slammed her own forehead into Lena's jaw sending the Tracer spiraling back off the roof, but that wasn't going to work. Lena blinked back up and- the rifle peppered her, tearing through her clothes and her accelerator. The device whimpered a mechanical distress and soon Lena was falling down, down, with no chance of recovery.


	3. A Drink Before the War

**Cape Charles, Virginia.  
United States.**

The tangerine sky looked lovely enough as the cream colored clouds lazily stretched across it just above where the dark blue of the ocean attempted to kiss it.  
The dwindling light was trying it's best to comfort Jesse McCree, but with a strike of a thin wooden match across the heel of his fading boots, he ignited cigar to ward away the weakness. The dark clear sky would be over him soon, and it was coming quick over the rooftop of the _Drunken Sailor Inn._  
Located just at the tip of the world, the Inn was sophisticated in its attempt to recreate the town's seafaring heydays, but not sophisticated enough to keep out a few rouges like himself.  
"Sir?" An auto tuned voice spoke from behind him as the Omnic waiter held out a rich glass of whiskey.  
"Thank you kindly." The man spoke low, eyes still locked on the sunset.  
"Anything else, sir?" The Omnic asked.  
"Nothin' I don't think you could help me with." McCree whispered, taking a drink. It burned, but it was good…it was also his 4th in an hour.  
"It is my job to assist our guests in anyway that I can." The waiter said to him, taking a seat in a vintage straw chair just next to the cowboy on the secluded porch McCree had been sitting at every day for almost a week now. _Watching the ocean._ _Waiting._  
"I lost someone," McCree said softly, "Someone I don't think I'll ever be able to find again."  
Another drink.  
"Still think you can help me, partner?"  
"I too, have lost someone. We all did. They killed our last chance of true unity with human and Omnic alike." The Omnic spoke, his smooth chrome features also staring out onto the water. His hollow eyes too were searching for something.  
Jesse gave a grunt of understanding. He'd seen the news. It's all _ATLAS_ had been talking about.  
"What's your name?" Jesse asked, bringing the brim of his hat up to face his company.  
"It was a sequence of 1's and 0's so long and elaborate I think you would be in a nursing home by the time I finished. But you can now just call me Randal."  
Jesse chuckled at that, and raised his glass to cheers the Omnic's sense of humor.  
"What's hers?" Randal asked.  
Before Jesse could react, the Omnic clarified:  
"I've seen many men and women stare out at this sea, waiting for a ship to come in that never will. Carrying a lover lost to the sea or to time." Randal's electronic voice had a softer, more sympathetic tone now.  
"Her name was Mei-Ling." Jesse punctuated the reveal with another sip of his whiskey.  
" _Was_ or _is_?" The Omnic turned to him. The sunset now turned to night, and the circuitry and designs across his new friend's faceplate lit a soft blue.  
"Couldn't tell ya, Randal. I saw her more than 20 years back…with _Overwatch._ I said goodbye to her, but I shoulda' said I loved her then. I been waiting the past two decades to finally say what I never had to nerve to."  
The Omnic wasn't fazed by Jesse's admittance of his involvement in Overwatch.  
"If she were to be here before you now, what would you say?"  
McCree finished his drink and bit the inside of his cheek as he swallowed the mature burn.  
"I'd take her by the hand," Jesse took a breath, "and I'd say _hey darlin'. How'bout a dance_?"  
 _And she'd smile. Her big cheeks raised to her deep almond eyes and she'd blush redder than a pepper, and she'd laugh.  
And she'd laugh, and we'd dance.  
_  
The conversation continued in vignettes as Randal would come in and out to service him until the clock struck at midnight, and he was off with a fond handshake and a genuine goodbye.  
In the morning, Jesse McCree's cab would take him to Norfolk International, and then to Gibraltar.  
But that was the morning, and he still had to drink himself to sleep.  
In the star-lit sky he kept waiting to see the men he fought just weeks ago on the bullet train through Texas. The _Talon_ men.  
He remembered how they moved, how they acted. Their tells. _They were Blackwatch.  
Not just normal Blackwatch. Now just your run of the mill soldier-type.  
_Jesse held the glass by the brim, sloshing it playfully side to side.  
 _They moved like Reyes.  
_ He swallowed the rest of it, and went back to puff on his cigar until it's cherry faded, leaving him in the shadows of a starry night.


	4. The Dragons' Duel

**Shimada Clan Castle.  
Hanamura, Japan.**

The tatami flooring was soft under Hanzo Shimada's feet as he walked over to the small basin of water in an empty, white room. A singular paper lantern overhead lazily moved in the breeze from the open door on the eastern wall which looked out to a small rock garden.  
The man dipped his blood-soaked hands into the clear water and watched solemnly as the red mist drifted off his skin to dance and darken within the bowl. Outside, three bodies lay clumped together: The Shimada Castle Guard stood no chance against the warrior, and they never would.  
Every year, on the same day, Hanzo would return from his travels to break into the castle grounds he once called home and dispatch the security so that he may make an incense offering to his father's sacred blade, and each year the guards seemed to never learn. The warrior carried his bow fastened across his back, and he also carried a pain that was much heavier than any man could hope to bare: fratricide.  
The murder of his own dear brother Genji by his own hands so many years ago, all because the boy's heart was too pure and incorruptible. The wind coming from the outside carried the comforting scent of the cherry blossoms blooming across the grounds, and bittersweet memories followed soon after.  
 _What would father say here, now?_ Hanzo massaged his hands in the cool water.  
 _Hanzo, my son. You've made me proud. I know I left a lot for you to handle…but you've been doing your best, and that is all I have ever asked of you._  
Would he say that, or would he hate Hanzo for also abandoning the Shimada Family?  
Would he hate him for murdering more than twenty of his own men after the archer discovered they had been trafficking drugs through school neighborhoods?  
Would he hate Hanzo for the way he drained the blood from the last remaining dealer who led a 13-year-old girl to end up in emergency care after an overdose?

Hanzo lead himself to the main room of the castle-grounds. A beautiful chamber where the high wooden walls seemed to have stood for millennia, and before him was the grandiose matted floor where the emptiness drew the eye to a simple yet decadent shrine sitting before a gorgeous but weathered tapestry which fell down to his father's great sword- the _Kōhai_. Surrounded by more than fifty candles all in varying states of decay from the wax spilling over the kanji engraved in them, the sword was softly illuminated and the markings across the blade seemed to glow in the dim light. Hanzo knelt down and reached for a stick which he lit quietly and brought it to one of the bare wicks before him.  
"I'm sorry," he whispered. His voice sounded foreign to him after going for so long as a man of few words. It sounded more rough and aged than it had been the last time he heard it. _What a strange thing,_ he thought, _to not recognize even the voice of one's self._  
"I'm sorry dear brother. I'm sorry father. Please realize everything I did…I did for honor-"  
A change in the wind disrupted him. The balance of the room shifted in such a hairpin fracture that a lesser warrior would never have even thought to sense it. Someone was there.  
"You are not the first assassin sent to kill me," He spoke with his eyes still trained upon his father's sword, "And you will not be the last."  
A soft drop on the tatami mat behind him near the room's entrance told Hanzo this figure was light. He did not carry any heavy weaponry, nor was he large in stature. The archer inhaled deeply, and let his lungs exhale through his thinly pursed lips.  
"You of all people come to Shimada Castle. The den of your enemies." The voice was masked by cybernetics, and spoken in Hanzo's own native tongue.  
"This was once my home-" The man's fingers graced the grip of his bow.  
Hanzo clenched it tightly and spun on his knee to loosen an arrow as he bellowed:  
"-Did your masters not tell you who I was?!"  
The arrow flew true, cutting through the air with a loud whistle, but the target was quick to side-step it with ease. Hanzo finally got a look at the man, donned in a slim suit of chrome body-armor that covered him from head to foot. His helm was marked with a thin green visor which shone vibrantly in the darkness, and the same patterns of light kissed down the man's body.  
"I know who you are, Hanzo!" The figure shouted as Hanzo let fly another arrow, this time he made sure to correct its trajectory- but still it fell short of the target. The mechanical attacker was toying with him.  
"You come here every year, on the same day!" Another arrow. The man dove behind one of the larger standing lanterns by the entrance which Hanzo fired at tearing small holes in the paper.  
"You risk so much to honor someone you murdered!" The cyborg flew from cover and send three shuriken spiraling towards Hanzo- he ducked in time as they sliced cleanly through the arrows in the quiver at his back before embedding themselves in the walls behind him.  
"You know nothing about what happened!" Hanzo roared, sighting the attacker up. This time he met his mark, and the man was knocked back to the sub level moat just below. The man darted to the broken rail and grabbed for a scatter-arrow, sending it flying down to the ninja.  
 _May these find you well,_ Hanzo smirked as the one thick arrow splintered and whistled into over a hundred smaller arrows, just as deadly but not as precise.  
A disturbing blur in the air and a whirlwind of slice from the figure's blade told Hanzo that those too, had failed. This warrior was unlike any other.  
Now standing at the stairs leading out to the wide balcony, the ninja waited. The green of his visor and his slender shape against the bright night sky outside were the only things reassuring Hanzo this was not some twisted vision.


	5. The Stars Align

_**Sorry the updates are so slow! I'm in the middle of a busy workload at school and have gotten absorbed into Skyrim again (Thanks, Special Edition) but I am working very diligently behind the scenes to plot out a grand narrative for the story. Thank you so much for sticking with me, please be sure to spread the word and leave reviews be they positive or negative. I love the feedback!  
**_

* * *

 **Gibraltar Watch Point**

Winston watched in horror at the news. Flashes of crying faces belonging to humans and Omnic alike as the body of Mondatta was being loaded onto a stretcher as the emergency response workers tried to put on a charade that anything could be done.  
"That's how this all starts, Athena. Again." He hung his head, removing his glasses.  
"Something does not _start again_ , Winston. It just continues. To what are you referring?" Athena asked.  
"Death tolls in the thousands. Mankind ripping itself apart about the Omnics. Talon not making it any better for anyone-" Winston's words were broken by a window popping up at his desktop, a distress call.  
 _Lena._  
"Oh my God," Winston gasped as his fingers dashed across the keyboard to bring up another frame, this one was a series of various graphs and readouts- Lena's vitals, and the status of her Chronal Accelerator.  
"Athena, w-what am I looking at here? What's happening?" The ape stammered, even he was stumped by what he was seeing. The screen was flickering rapidly as her vitals rose and fell in an erratic trance of greens and reds, numbers and letters.  
"Overwatch Agent Lena Oxton, Code Name Tracer. Winston her Chronal device has been punctured by three 8x40 mm rounds from a…."  
Winston didn't even acknowledge the woman-AI's voice stalling out. He pressed the communication's button. Static.  
"Lena?!" Winston yelled for her, "Lena?"  
Nothing. Silence.  
Winston executed a manual command prompt for the Chronal device. The sequence of code unraveled on the screen, and Winston acted fast to highlight and attempt to rewrite the corrupt strings of data.  
 _If I can disable the aenoic eruptor and isolate continuum shift…  
_ "Athena, what hit her? What was it?" Winston hissed, scrambling finger to type out various commands and overrides.  
"8x40mm rounds. Plasmatic in structure." Athena responded.  
"From what? What kind of rifle could do that? Regular lead ammunition, hell even typical plasma rounds shouldn't be able to do this to her…to the device…"  
"I am unable to trace the weapon."  
"Unable? What do you mean? I don't…I _need_ to know, Athena."  
"I am unable to process your request."  
The computer's read out finally normalized and sounded off accordingly. A calming ping of acknowledgement. Lena was safe. Had Winston not thought as fast as he did…had he not done what he needed…there was no telling what could have happened to her. No telling where, or _when_ she could have jumped to.  
The British woman's voice found itself weakly over the communication network.  
"H-heya big guy. Saved my life now, did ya?" A faint laugh.  
"Tr-…Lena. Lena you're safe."  
"You call it what you wanna' call it." She replied, now appearing on the display. Her beautiful, smooth features rough and bruised. She'd been in a scrap alright.  
"Come home, Lena. Please? Don't scare me again." Winston let out a sigh of relief.  
"Gladly. I need to get out of London…I need…I need to be anywhere else. I failed him, Winston. I failed."  
He could hear her choke back what sounded like tears. Winston himself was on the verge of them.  
"Just come in, Lena. We'll be here…and you'll be seeing some old friends, too."  
"Put the tea on for me, love." She smirked. 

* * *

The next day seemed to drag, and Winston waited at the docks like an impatient child expecting their friends to arrive for a party. It was a party…sort of. It was also his mission. It was the fate of the free world, and Zeigler, McCree, Lena. They would all be arriving within the next few hours.

His PDA vibrated, and an incoming message was received. He almost couldn't believe the notification-  
 _Diamond Class U.N. Clearance. Encrypted Documents Enclosed from Former General GABRIELLE ADAWE. Highly Classified._ Winston tapped to open it and-  
The screen froze. The document closed out. His PDA shut down.  
In the black mirror of the screen, Athena's logo appeared in a dim blue form.  
"I'm sorry Winston, I have had an error. I will correct this." The text appeared on the screen and a feeling of unease creeped up Winston's spine like a small spider, tracing each leg slowly through his white hair.  
 _Athena, what are you doing?_  
"Winston, your heartbeat has increased. You are…concerned."  
"No, Athena. I'm fine. I was just thinking of…of Lena." He mumbled, slipping the PDA back into a small slot on his suit.

* * *

When Zeigler arrived, the sky seemed to glow around her. Stepping off the meager looking boat, she looked as radiant as she ever had. Winston watched her on the news all these years, always smiling and helping those that she could. She would publish scientific essays and was always in the latest magazine interviews and news reports- always on the cusp of breaking through whatever diseases humanities still hadn't dealt with. She was still an angel.  
"Winston!" The woman yelled, running to embrace him in a hug that her arms could barely complete around his large frame.  
"Angela! Congratulations, you're the first one." Winston laughed, letting her go before he crushed her with enthusiasm.  
"Who else is coming along?" She asked, taking in the salty air of the sea and looking around her at the base built snug into the large rock. "God. I haven't seen this place in so long," She noted.  
"Lena is on her way, so is Jesse-"  
"Jesse McCree." She finished the name for him. Winston sensed something about her from the way she spoke the name, but decided it was best not to think anymore on it.  
"What about the others? Are there others?" She asked as she clutched the handle of a large metallic case on wheels, rolling it along with her as they began to walk down the rocky pier as the boat's horn signaled that it was departing back around the island to the city.  
"I've been struggling to get a good location on them all…to be honest, when Talon had attacked me here, I reacted a bit irrationally in sounding the recall."  
"Talon?" She stopped, staring at him.  
"Yes. They tore through the base just a few nights ago when I had contacted you in Israel. I'd been following them so closely that I didn't even try to step back and look for a pattern. Even Athena was caught off guard by them."  
The two had climbed the winding set of stairs to reach the small cove where the basecamp began, and where Winston's lab was embedded into overlooking the long runway which stretched from his space through the hangars and entire base to the Launchpad where Overwatch would send satellites up so very long ago.  
Angela chewed on her lip nervously, and Winston continued.  
"They were…violent. Lead by some monster of a man with a mask."  
"Oh no." She whispered.  
"What is it, Angela?" Winston turned to her.  
"The Reaper."  
The name was so sinister, and so fitting. Winston thought back to the man, dressed all in black, moving through the shadows. The fire in the dark pits of his eyes where there was nothing at all but hatred.  
"Gabriel." She clarified.  
Winston felt his eyes widen.  
"Gabriel? R-Reyes?" He asked, "I thought…didn't he…?"  
"Gabriel Reyes died," She said, "There is only… _Reaper_ now." Angela spoke so mechanically and detached it was as if she was reliving a hellish nightmare.  
Winston had no idea that she actually was.


	6. The Reaper's Prey

**Outskirts of Cairo, Egypt.**

The filed point of Gabriel Reyes' glove traced along the intricate design of the hard mask sitting before him. Marked with scorch and dirt, it was the only face he knew now. The face another made for him. The face he adopted.  
 _"You're an owl, now Gabriel. It's cute. Owls are stubborn, and they always cock their head in confusion or boredom. Like you whenever Jack is talking!"_ Zeigler's voice echoed to him from decades past like a haunting tune that the radio would play to inject a painful dosage of nostalgia into the veins.  
A deadly drug. The hard surface of the guise was nothing like Zeigler's soft skin. The skin those very hands had been wrapped around just days before when he'd traced her to Israel.  
He could have killed her. Should have. But it was _Jack_ he wanted. It was _Jack_ that was still alive out there. Using his number.  
"76," he growled. His vocal chords had corrupted and distorted his voice so much that he spoke like a devil, and now even his voice was not his own. The man who called himself the Reaper's breath was now a weak sounding wheeze, coated in pain. Like the small thin veins in every inch of his body were being nicked and sliced by razors, constantly. A never ending suffering.  
"Jack."  
The Talon base of operations was a sloppy clump of clay and brick buildings that had been gutted and repurposed with metallic doors and piles of computers in every room, with a constant anti-radar device in place from their technomancer only known to them by the codename _Sombra._ They had only expected to be stationed there for a week, but their mission was taking longer than that.  
 _Simple enough,_ Reyes thought, reaching to his neck to pull up his heavy cloth hood, _Break into the Temple. Hijack ANUBIS. Pack up and clear out._ But it was never that simple.

The Helix Security force was guarding the place with their lives and, as Sombra had found out, had already lost plenty in the process. On the wall in Gabriel's cramped quarters were various pictures snapped from drones and hidden eyes on the ground of the security forces, and their leader in the front and center of them all. _Fareeha Amari._  
"Reaper," A voice came in through the speaker at Reyes' personal computer, cloaked in static from the poor signal they'd been operating off of.  
"I think you have a visitor." The voice was feminine, a thick Hispanic accent told him it was Sombra.  
The screen before him began to distort and a small command prompt popped up as thick lines of code began to appear and then, as a result, a live-feed of the complex's outer security camera.  
A body lay still in the blinding white of the sand, and standing above the unconscious guard was a man with broad shoulders covered by a tight leather jacket- his face concealed with a tactical mask and a thinning crop of white hair clung to the top of his scalp.  
 _Finally. He took the bait._  
"Leave him. He's mine." Gabriel flexed his fingers and they popped accordingly as the grip to his shotgun began to manifest at his palm.  
"I'm long gone, Gabriel. He's yours." The footage cut out along with Sombra's voice.  
The Reaper donned his mask- the appearance of skin that covered what was left of his face formed around the edges and absorbed it into himself as he finally had his face back. Reaper closed his eyes and found the location outside, and began to tear himself apart into a cloud of black hell to finally take down the man who had torn his life apart.


	7. Old Soldiers

**Talon Base of Operations.  
Outskirts of Cairo, Egypt.**

Jack Morrison had been brought here to find the assassin known as the Shrike. A deadly sniper that had been spotted in the area with a high bounty on her head. A man named Hakim was supposedly here, and while Morrison didn't agree with the current state of the country run by mercenaries and war-lords, he needed the money. He needed to keep moving.  
Jack stared up at the large gate ahead of him, built into an ornate and ancient entryway painted with a fading light blue and trimmed with detailed hieroglyphs and designs. He leapt towards the wall and bounded up it with no small feat of strength and cleared it with ease, landing behind a weak-willed security guard who received a blunt-force strike from Morrison's pulse rifle. That's when he realized it...  
The compound was nearly deserted. He brought his hand to the temple of his visor and clicked the small trigger at the edge of the glass. His vision brightened into shades of red and orange, scanning for signs of life.  
"Where is he?" He whispered to himself. The dry heat of the desert air then drained, and a cold chill came down around him.  
"Right here, Jack." A grizzled voice spoke the words behind him, but before he could turn his lower back was struck with a visceral pain from a gunshot, and the soldier collapsed to the rough sand below. His body screaming in agony, Morrison's arm began to hug at his side where his fingers felt the gruesome mark. He rolled over and realized he was in the shadow of death itself.  
" _Always rushing in_ ," The figure taunted. Morrison recognized the voice, almost. _But who, who was it?_  
"I know your every move before you even _think_ it. I always have. I always will." The grim spectre was going to kill him there, Jack knew it.

 _Stupid. Stupid._ The soldier fought through the hurt, the life slipping through his body.  
"I've been looking for you since _Switzerland._ "  
 _No._ Morrison rolled over onto his back. The figure was as black as a sunless sky, and the mask he wore was narrow and macabre, like the skeletal face of a decayed bird. _I do know you.  
_ " _Gabriel?_ " Morrison questioned, moving his arm from the wound to steady himself on the ground. The blood and dirt leaving a mess around his body.  
"No, Jack. Not anymore." The figure shook his head, kneeling down at Morrison's boots.  
"Look at me, Jack. I want this to be the last thing you remember when your soul leaves your fragile body. I want your _dying thoughts_ to be of me. This is how it should have ended. This right here."  
The monster that Jack remembered as Gabriel began to stand up, the barrel of his gun so close to Jack that he could smell the metal and powder.  
Jack took a deep breath, one he thought would be his last. He closed his eyes.  
 _I'm ready, then. I'll see you, Ana. Dad, I can't wait to tell you about everything. About how I tried to save the world and failed…you'll be proud.  
_ The creature screamed, and Jack opened his eyes to watch Reyes clutch at his neck. Then a dart hit Jack's arm with a whip through the wind, and he felt his wound begin to close, and a feeling of something not unlike his biotic field device blanketed him in comfort.  
"Jack! Get in there!" A voice screamed at him. If it was God, he sure sounded like a she. And _she_ was on his side.  
Jack shot up and tackled Gabriel onto the ground, his knuckles cracking in repetition at the man's mask until Gabriel brought his leg up hard into Jack's inner thigh, knocking him off. One strike, Reyes missed. Another, and then the two were trading blows. Morrison still couldn't believe what was happening, but fighting for his life with his hands, on his feet, was better than dying on his back, bleeding out like a dog in the sun.

Reyes stopped suddenly, stepping backwards to avoid Jack's punch and craned his head up to the top of the gate behind them. A figure, cloaked in blue, stood atop the structure with a thin silver sniper rifle in hand. Morrison reached for Reyes but the man dodged and slammed his fist into Jack's body hard enough that the old soldier could feel a crack in his ribs, and he went tumbling back down to the ground.

* * *

Reyes materialized behind the sniper, his bones and muscle piecing and stitching themselves back together in a blinding white agony that he was still learning to swallow.

The woman, whipped around and raised a small pistol that fired another dart but Reaper was too fast for that. Too smart for that. He whipped a clawed hand out and caught it, shattering it in his grip with a laugh as the fear spawned in the eyes of the woman he knew in another life as Ana Amari.  
"After all this time we've been trying to draw out the sniper _bitch_ that's been sabotaging us," He said striking at Ana who deflected his attack with a thrust of her arm.  
"Who would have thought I'd be facing _two_ ghosts today!" Ana said nothing but ducked down with a leg-sweep that knocked Reaper off balance long enough for her to move around him.  
She brought her hands to his throat as his heels flirted with the edge of the small structure they battled on.  
"I'd rather be a ghost than whatever you are Gabriel. Whatever you've _become_."  
"Of course you would," He choked out, her finger pushing the coarse fabric of his hood into the doughy pulp of the tendons at his neck. He felt the blood already oozing and pooling down to his collar.  
"You _always_ took his side."  
Ana shoved him, and they both fell. Twisting through the air till gravity hammered Reaper's body straight to the ground below and he could feel his spine shatter and immediately begin to rebuild itself. He gasped, and kicked himself up to personally tear Ana's other eye from the socket, but she was fast. She grabbed his mask and ripped it off, bits of the muscle around his face coming with it.

The woman he once loved looked at him in disgust and fright.  
"Oh my _God._ What happened to you?!" She screamed, covering her mouth.  
" _He_ did this to me, Ana. _They_ left me to become…this." Reyes wanted to cover himself, as the sunlight even seared the mess of an exposed visage he had. He grabbed his mask from the ground, and held it close at his chin. His teeth were beginning to bleed now, with no lips to cover them.  
"They left you to die…they left me to suffer…" He closed his eyes, and felt himself once again dematerialize.  
"Never forget that." He was gone now, evaporating into the sky.

* * *

Morrison watched the back of the woman's head as her hood fell to her shoulders letting a main of silken silver hair fall out loosely down her neck.  
She turned, and Jack knew he had to be dead. He died earlier. That's the only way to explain…  
"I should have killed you, Jack." Ana Amari said to him, walking over to extend a wrapped and gloved hand from her padded coat.  
"Ana…" He tried to speak.  
"I've been staking this place out for _days_. I was so close to-"  
"I thought you were dead." Morrison whispered. Still unable to comprehend what was happening. The woman he hadn't seen in more than 20 years. The woman he mourned every night, was standing before him, aged like fine clay with only a few cracks across her copper-toned skin.  
"Just like the rest of the world thought you were." She said, her mouth struggling not to smile.  
"You're too hard-headed to die, aren't you Jack?"  
The hole in Jack's heart that was attempting to correct itself then realized it was spurned. The soldier clenched his jaw, staring at the woman.

"This is my war, Ana. And you gave it…you gave _me_ up, or you'd have told me where you were. That you were alive…"  
Ana took two wide steps towards him and ripped his mask off to replace it with a hard slap across his cheek.  
"You have _no idea_ what I went through, Jack! I failed everyone. I failed our team that day, I failed _you_ , I failed _my_ daughter. I figured the world would be better with me as a ghost. A phantom that couldn't ruin anything else. Did I make the right choice? I have no idea. But don't you _dare_ tell me I gave you up. I don't give a damn about _your_ war. Your little crusade to play in this world where you aren't needed anymore…but I care about you, Jack. Dammit, I still care." She sighed, and the look on her eye softened.  
"I still love you, Jack." She held his face in her palms. "I fear that I always will." Ana smirked.  
"Let's get out of here before the cleaning crew shows up," Morrison leaned in to kiss her. A familiar taste that he missed and had yearned for all of his life, even before he'd ever met her.  
He turned around to head to the gate, but was stopped by Ana grabbing his arm to stop him.  
"What are you going to do when there's no more battles to fight? No more wars to try and die in?"  
Morrison picked his mask back up and slipped it on, feeling the visor vibrate and light up again across his vision.  
"I'm a soldier, Ana. Our war is never over."


	8. The Brothers

_**So sorry everyone. School has been a pain in the ass on me! Rest assured, a LOT of updates will be coming within the next few weeks.**_  
 ** _Please be sure to keep the comments coming!_**

* * *

 ****

 **Hanamura**

Hanzo Shimada felt his lip crack open from the hilt of the assassin's slender blade, the neon green lights moving in a blur like dancing illumination in the still darkness of the Japanese night around them on the patio. He had battled the warrior viciously in bouts of arrows and fists, but their dual was turning from a test of strength into one of endurance.  
Finally, Hanzo had enough.  
"You do all of this, for forgiveness, out of guilt," The warrior yelled to him as he jumped back, cartwheeling on the hard wood flooring beneath them where his nails like daggers left striking marks.  
"You do this for a family that forgot you!"  
"That's enough!" Hanzo screamed, arching his bow. This was it. He closed his eyes and felt the hard-light infused ink embedded in his skin begin to vibrate. The dragon would come now. _The dragon would end it.  
"Ryuu ga waga teki wo kurau!" _He screamed in his native tongue as he loosened the final arrow, and he felt the patterns off his skin come alive, draining from him into vortex of blinding blue and white light, and the roar of it ferociously shook the floor beneath him. The wood rattled and the pillars trembled, and the ninja before him took a stance. _Good luck, assassin.  
_ The man held his blade to his side, waiting. The twin dragons entwined and danced around each other hungry for blood, and then a flash of green broke through it. The light formed a dragon of its own.  
 _No,_ Hanzo thought as he took a step back. _No…  
_ The assassin worked his blade like a conductor's wand, and shifted the three mythical beasts around him, and then Hanzo watched as the gaping jaw and contorted snouts of his own creation found their way back to him, their white eyes staring directly into his. Into his soul.

The three beasts cut through him, and all sight was lost as he felt his skin burn and the insides of his body twisting and crying out in pain. The pain so intense, so devastating, that he couldn't even scream.  
Hanzo Shimada collapsed to his knees, dropping his bow lazily from his grip.  
"Only…" he began, the weight of the situation finally making itself known.  
"Only a Shimada can control the dragons." He spoke to the man.  
No reply. The assassin acted like Hanzo hadn't said a thing at all.  
"Who are you?" He asked, defeated.  
The figure sprinted to him, and within a half-second his blade was pressed to the smooth exposed skin beneath his hardened jaw.  
Hanzo closed his eyes to the world, and looked over to the menacing glow of the attacker's robotic visor.  
"Do it then. Kill me."  
The blade was still as the air, and the assassin looked down to him.  
"No. I will not grant you the death you pray for. You still have a purpose in this life…brother."  
The blade was removed, and the man kept walking. Hanzo felt his legs again, they were his once more. He was cold, chilled to the very core of himself. His heart, the darkness that he called it, began to stir.  
"No!" he turned around to face the man, "My brother is _dead_!"  
The assassin gently knelt down and placed his sword on the floor, and as he stood up brought his hands to the back of his helmet. A hiss of air and light expulsion of steam flittered into the night air as the mask began to open…and beneath it was a face Hanzo Shimada would recognize even as an old man losing his own sight. _Genji._  
"What…have you become?" Hanzo asked. The way the man- the way his brother- moved earlier…it was not natural. The features under that mask were decorated in scars and pain. A soft child's face was forged into a man's grimace.

"I have accepted what I am…and I have forgiven you, Hanzo." Genj's mask covered his face once more, and the ninja moved towards him to place a metallic hand on his shoulder.  
"The world is changing, brother. You have to pick a side. You have to forgive yourself." Genj leapt from the patio to the high wall that stood towering above the gardens beneath them. Hanzo reached for his bow, anger and empathy were one in him. He readied an arrow.  
"A side?! You're not some great warrior, you aren't a hero! Our life isn't like the stories father would tell us, and you're a fool for thinking that!" Hanzo screamed, fighting the warmth in his face that would lead to droplets of sorrow.  
"Perhaps I am a fool," Genji answered back, "Perhaps I am a fool for still believing in you, brother."  
Genji turned to face him. He knew Hanzo wouldn't fire at him. Hanzo knew that as well.  
In a brilliant flash of light and smoke, his brother was gone and in his wake, a feather drifted lightly on the wind towards him. Hanzo caught it with sure fingers, and looked at it. The moon was dipping now, and soon daylight could come.  
Hanzo Shimada tucked the feather into his breast.  
"I let you go once before, Genji. I won't do that again," he whispered into the still of the night.


	9. Returning to Base

**Gibraltar.**

Jesse McCree watched the blue curves of the ocean crash together as far as he could see.  
"Going to the rock, eh?" The boat captain asked him.  
"I gotta go somewhere." McCree answered as he lit a cigar, the cherry sparking to the wind.  
"I just took somewhere there, you know." The man at the helm told him, "Blonde. Beautiful."  
McCree closed his eyes as the sea-faring wind caressed his rough features. He knew who the blonde was.  
"Sorta' tall? Like me?" He asked back to the captain.  
"Eh. Yeah. Sorta."  
 _Angela Zeigler. An angel on the battlefield now floating along the ocean.  
_ McCree clenched his mechanical hand and the circuitry beneath his fingers whirred as his fingers pressed into the plating of his palm. All those years ago, the way she had treated Reyes…  
The way she had treated all of them over that girl. Over what had happened.  
Jesse reached for his flask under the billowing burnt orange poncho he wore; the cloth was torn and scratched as it began to show its years…much like it's owner.  
"You all are…Overwatch, aren't you?" The captain asked as the ship groaned beneath them. The boat itself was a small ferry, with a simple cabin at the bow and a bench around the wall of the stern that could seat six or seven.  
McCree was silent to the question.  
" _Was_."  
"Was. Ah. I know the stories. I know they…you...used to use The Rock for a base," The man reminisced as he tilted his head to look at the towering mass of Earth.  
"Long time ago partner. I owe it to a friend to stop by."  
"The girl? The girl is your friend?"  
"Not exactly."  
The whiskey offered a nice sting at the back of his throat mixing with the salt of the air as the ship began to coast towards an extended wooden dock that stretched from the base of the rock-facility into the ocean.  
"I remember back then. What was it, 10 years ago? 15? I would be sitting there at home, and _mi hijo_ would say 'Papa look, there they are, _Los héroes están viniendo!'_ The heroes are coming!" The man's voice changed now. His cheerful indifference gave way to a bitter-sweet sounding nostalgia.  
McCree watched the captain as he turned slightly to look at the lonesome cowboy.  
"He was 9," The man continued, "He grew up wanting to be you. Wanting to be _Overwatch._ "  
The captain let that sink in, and Jesse McCree watched him, taking another pull from his flask.  
"I'm not a hero." McCree lamented.  
"Bullshit. I see the colors on you. _Orgullo de Dorado_. Those don't come easy; you understand? They give those to heroes. Men who fought for their country…for their people. You were someone's hero."  
McCree thought back to that mission. Beating back the Omnics through those dusty Mexican streets. _Thinking he would die there in the dust and cobblestone._  
"We're here." The captain noticed as the ship's engine cut and began to bob back and forth over the gently lapping waves.  
"Thanks, partner." Jesse sighed, hoisting himself up on the side of the ship and dropping down to the rickety wooden dock, his boots receiving a soggy clop at the landing. He turned to the captain and gave a tip of his wide-brimmed hat and began to turn away towards the large stone steps that made their way to the facility.  
"My boy died shortly after the U.N.'s hearings. Shortly after they buried Commander Morrison."  
Jesse stopped.  
"He wanted nothing more in this world than to be one of you. To serve with you. When the sickness was starting to get the better of him, he asked me. He asked, 'Papá, they'll come save me?'. He didn't understand at the time. Didn't understand what happened."  
Silence between them, as acoustics of the ocean continued.  
"Remember. When you go up there. When you get your friends together. Remember the hope you stood for."  
Jesse nodded his head and clenched his teeth and he stepped forward to ascend the stone staircase to the Watch Point complex.

The stairs gave way to an out-cropping just beside a two-story square building attached to what looked like a watchtower that connected via bridge to another one across from it built into the rocks. A runway was neatly paved between the two towers, starting at a graciously sized staircase leading to a set of blast doors. A glass window jutted from the rocks, looking across the runway.  
"Well. It's been a long while." McCree sighed as he slowly walked towards the doors which opened suddenly, and the large unmistakably hairy silhouette of Winston was there to greet him.  
"Welcome to the future." The simian grinned, arms spread for the cowboy to embrace.


	10. The Knight

**Just outside of Nuuk, Greenland.**

"How do we even end up in places like this, Wilhelm?" Brigitte looked up to the towering man at her side, his silver whiskers and long hair gently stirring in the air as the clouds darkened overhead.  
She stopped their truck long enough for the two to stretch their legs before heading into the city where they would catch a freighter across the North Atlantic into Germany.  
"We go where we are needed, dear. You know that. A soldier's work is never done."  
"And what about the recall?" She asked.  
Wilhelm Reinhardt grunted as if he were about to speak, but remained silent. In the past few years he had been as determined as ever, but Brigitte could tell that time was weighing heavy on the proud warrior.  
"I told you, Eichenwald comes first. It's important."  
"More important than Overwatch?" The young woman asked. She knew she was out of line in doing so. There were some subjects that were still delicate, and even the gentle giant attitude of her mentor could be cut so thin she would sometimes stir the dormant fire in his eyes.  
"The things that kept me tied to Overwatch were taken from me many years ago, but I owe it to _him_ to visit that monument every year on the anniversary."  
He rarely spoke of what happened during the fall, and even more rare were his mentions of the Siege of Eichenwald were his commander and many of his brothers fell in battle against the Omnic forces.  
Brigitte had always suspected his reluctance to reminisce on Overwatch came from the woman known as Captain Ana Amari, which she strongly believed he had been in love with.  
"I know Wilhelm. I know how important that is to you…but they need you too. They need a hero, and you were one of the first."  
The large German chuckled at that as the rain began to fall: "All the heroes I knew died in battle."  
"Come on big guy. Let's go into town and get something to eat," Brigitte tapped at one of his muscular and scarred arms.  
"Ah, you're right. It's dinner time." He broke his gaze and detachment from the landscape and returned to his cheery demeanor. 

* * *

In a port-side diner, Brigitte and Wilhelm had found a nice table in a front corner of the restaurant staring out the window to the darkened sea beyond them as the ships rolled in and out.  
Propped atop of a large shelf towards the back of the building, and old television was broadcasting the world news. Reinhardt watched the ATLAS News coverage of the London assassination as he nursed a mug of beer.  
"Jesus." Brigitte sighed as the anchor spoke over subtitled footage of the chaos in King's Row.  
"I was there once, you know," Reinhardt told her, "Breaking apart riots and protests against the Omnics in the darker days of the war. So much hatred from both sides…so much anger."  
"I remember my parents talking about that. I remember the fear." Brigitte replied.  
"You remember. _I was there_." Reinhardt finished his mug and motioned at the young waiter for another.  
The two sat, watching the news in silence as the man returned with another frothy mug, gently setting it down in front of Wilhelm.  
"Talon took responsibility for that attack. I don't know why anyone is surprised anymore," The server said through broken English, "It's disgusting the state of things."  
Reinhardt slid the man a wad of bills but the waiter declined with a raised palm.  
"You can drink all you want here, sir. No charge. People still remember their heroes."  
Brigitte watched as Wilhelm's features softened slightly.  
"Thank you." She spoke up before Wilhelm could reject. "Thank you so much."


End file.
